The brave officer: memory does not make identity

The brave officer paradox

Thomas Reid 1710 · 1796We are the true authors of our acts: an agent can be the cause of what it does.

What it claims

The general is the same person as the boy, although he no longer remembers. Personal identity does not consist in memory: it is the continued existence of one simple being, of which memory is only the evidence.

Why

If the general is the officer and the officer is the boy, the general is the boy even without remembering: identity does not rest on memory.

The same idea through history

Joseph Butler1736Reid says himself that he follows Butler, with whose sentiments he perfectly agrees: consciousness of the past presupposes personal identity, so it cannot constitute it.

Thomas Reid1785Reid adds the brave officer case: even if memory is granted as the criterion, a logical contradiction follows.

In short

"The brave officer: memory does not make identity" is an argument by Thomas Reid (Essays on the Intellectual Powers, III, 4 and 6, 1785, 1785) on the question "Who am I, really?" (answer: a soul). Its claim: The general is the same person as the boy, although he no longer remembers. Personal identity does not consist in memory: it is the continued existence of one simple being, of which memory is only the evidence. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 4 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Essays on the Intellectual Powers, III, 4 and 6, 1785

Valid

Locke says a person's identity reaches as far as their consciousness of the past. Reid reads this consciousness as memory and builds a simple case: a boy is flogged for robbing an orchard; as a young officer he remembers it; as an old general he remembers the officer but no longer the boy. On Locke's view the general is the officer, the officer is the boy, but the general is not the boy. Yet logic says that if A is B and B is C, then A is C. Reid concludes that identity cannot consist in memory. For him, a person is a simple being without parts, existing without interruption; memory is only the evidence of this identity, as likeness is the evidence that a stolen horse is ours. Note: Locke speaks of "consciousness", not "memory"; reducing one to the other is Reid's choice (see the objections).

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.

All four premises are used. P1 and P2 give "the officer is the boy" and "the general is the officer". P3 draws "the general is the boy". Since the general does not remember the boy (P1), identity does not depend on memory. P4 says what identity is instead: the continued existence of one being. Reid also writes that Locke makes memory do what it does not do: "to say that the testimony is the cause of the thing testified is absurd".

Analogy. A stolen horse found at a thief's: the owner can only prove it is his by its likeness. Nobody concludes that the horse's identity consists in likeness. In the same way, my memory proves I did something, it does not make me do it.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Derek Parfit (psychological continuity) 1984 · attacks the conclusion

Locke's defender answers that the general does not need to remember the boy: he is linked to the officer, who is linked to the boy. What counts is not direct memory but psychological continuity, that is, chains of overlapping memories. So the general is the boy, without contradiction, and identity can still rest on the psychological, without direct memory.

a defender replies

see the argument

No reply possible: objection raised in 1984, after the author's death (1796).

Richard Swinburne defender of the argument · 1984

Swinburne defends, like Reid, that personal identity is a basic fact that cannot be broken down into memories, character or body. In his view, a chain of memories tells under what conditions we recognise the same person, not what makes it the same. He calls this thesis the dualist theory.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Many of Locke's heirs adopted the chain-of-memories answer, which avoids Reid's contradiction. The core disagreement remains: does a person's identity reduce to psychological links, or is there a further fact, as Reid and Swinburne hold? An open point, with no widely accepted answer.

Sydney Shoemaker (quasi-memory) 1970 · attacks premise 2

Memory cannot be used to define identity, it is said, since it presupposes it: remembering doing something already means thinking that I did it. Shoemaker answers by defining quasi-memory: a memory that comes from a person's experience, without assuming that this person is me. Chains of quasi-memories can then define identity without circularity.

no reply

No reply possible: objection raised in 1970, after the author's death (1796).

Where the debate stands (our summary)Shoemaker thus aims to remove the circularity charge of Butler and Reid. It is still discussed whether the definition of quasi-memory really escapes the circle and whether it suffices to ground identity. An open point, with no widely accepted answer.